Middle Earth Ranger Forum

Taurinor wrote: Flint was typically used in Europe, historically speaking, but it doesn't have to be flint. Quartz also works, and other hard stones are worth trying. You just need something harder than the steel that will drive a spark off. I'll just pick up rocks that look like they have really sharp edges when I'm out walking and try them out. If they work, I put them in my pocket, and if they don't, I toss them.

Huh! I always thought it was something to do with the chemical make up of the flint. Fascinating! Thanks for the tip!

I am curious though how you ended up attaching your snapsack to the bedroll or vice a versa.

So I promised an answer to this. What I *HAD* been doing was wrapping the blanket around the shoulder strap, giving it a quick tie to stay in place, then buckling on the goatskin cover. The bag is tied separately to the strap via a couple custom d-rings:
Where that is GREAT is that the strap through the middle of the blanket is really really good for keeping everything in nice and tight. Where it falls down is that it's a pain in the but to get back together, especially in a hurry or with cold fingers. Even worse- once I had the bag come loose, which was no end of embarrassing. At least it was only embarrassing.

So anyhow, what I'm experimenting with is figuring out how to make everything work with the strap attached directly to the snapsack - that way half of the kit is already together at the start. I think it will work GREAT with Greg's Brisk Morning Outing setup - just roll the blanket around the strap.

... and here you see where I really put an arrow through my foot: when I added a strap to my old linen bag, I'd wanted to go avoid as much metal as possible, so I punched lacing holes rather than fit a buckle to it. ... and THEN that "well just wrap the blanket around the bedroll strap" idea occurred to me. Oops.
While this strap is great for just the bag, it would be a royal pain to open up every time I want to go rolling a blanket. Here of all places, a buckle would come in really really handy! Anyhow, I think once I replace this strap with a buckled version it will work just great. Roll the blanket around the "long" end, throw that strap over the shoulder, and buckle everything down snug!

Now...

I'm not quite certain how things will work with the longer skinny sack, as it was designed from the start to ride side-by-side with the bedroll. I've stitched one of my earlier burden straps directly to the bag: at some point I'll cut the strap in the middle to a reasonable length, add a buckle, and start experimenting:

Iodo wrote: I would recommend looking out in thrift stores for a plain linen shirt and pants, linen is easy to dye so there's no need to worry about them being in the more common lighter colors

Rit makes a dye remover as well, with which I've had ASTONISHING success. Took a dark blue pair of linen pants, pulled all the dye out in less than 5 minutes and re-dyed them a light brown.

Nice, thanks for the info, I'll have to get hold of some of that